Collection area: Massachusetts (Central)
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Microfilm town records of Greenwich, Massachusetts consisting primarily of warrants for and minutes of town meetings as well as transcripts of meetings for state and national elections, militia lists, voter lists, and pew lists.

Granted in 1737 and incorporated in 1754, Greenwich, Mass., was the first town in the Swift River Valley settled by Europeans. Sitting astride the East and Middle branches of the Swift River and forming the eastern boundary of Hampshire County, Greenwich was primarily an agricultural town with light manufacturing and, beginning in the later nineteenth century, an active tourist trade. The town’s population peaked at over 1,100 early in the nineteenth century, declining slowly thereafter.

The records of Greenwich, Mass., offer a long perspective on the history of the region inundated to create the Quabbin Reservoir. The core of this collection consists of the records of town meetings and the Selectmen of Greenwich from the Proprietary period in the 1730s through disincorporation in 1938, but there is some documentation of the town’s Congregational Church, a local school, the library, and the Greenwich Improvement Society. This finding aid reflects both materials held by SCUA and materials digitized in partnership with the Swift River Valley Historical Society in New Salem, Mass.

An industrious artisan with a wide custom, Jonah B. Griswold made gravestones and sepulchral monuments in Sturbridge, Mass., during the three decades saddling the Civil War. Making 20 or more stones a month, Griswold had clients throughout southern Worcester County, including the Brookfields, Charlton, Wales, Woodstock, Warren, Brimfield, Union, Oxford, Worcester, Southbridge, Holland, New Boston, Spencer, Webster, Dudley, and Podunk, and as far south as Pomfret, Conn.

The four volumes that survive from Griswold’s operation include: record of cash expenditures for personal items, 1843-1876, combined with accounts of work performed for Griswold and daybook with records of marble purchased and stones carved, 1861-1876; daybook of cash on hand 1841-1842, with accounts of stone purchased and stones carved, April 1843-1849; daybook of stones carved, 1849-1860; and daybook of stones carved, 1855-1876. Griswold seldom records inscriptions, with most entries restricted to the name of the client and/or deceased, location, and cost, such as: “Oct. 14. Brookfield. Stone for Mr. Woods child 25.43” Prices during the antebellum period ranged from $10 (half that for infants) to over $140, with larger monuments going higher.

Subjects

Gravestones--Massachusetts

Stone carving--Massachusetts

Sturbridge (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Association for Gravestone Studies

Griswold, Jonah B

Types of material

Charles Hutchins Hapgood (1904-1982) was working toward a doctorate in French history at Harvard when the Great Depression derailed his plans. After a succession of jobs and wartime service, however, Hapgood returned to the academy, teaching history at Springfield College and Keene State for over three decades. He is best remembered as an advocate of several scientifically heterodox ideas, arguing that the earth’s outer crust shifts on geological time scales, displacing continents, and that the earth’s rotational axis has shifted numerous times in geological history. A long time friend and supporter of the medium Elwood Babbitt, he was author of several books, including The Earth’s Shifting Crust (1958), Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966), The Path of the Pole (1970), and Voices of Spirit : Through the Psychic Experience of Elwood Babbitt (1975). Hapgood died in Fitchburg, Mass., on Dec. 21, 1982, after being struck by an automobile.

The Hapgood Papers contain a small grouping of correspondence and writings that offer a glimpse into some of Charles Hapgood’s late-career interests. Although the correspondence is relatively slight, relating primarily to publications in the last two or three years of his life, the collection is a rich resource for the lectures and writings of Elwood Babbitt.

Justice of the peace, merchant, landowner, and entrepreneur from Prescott and Shutesbury, Massachusetts. Nine volumes contain descriptions of his duties as justice of the peace, a book of deeds and mortgages from local real estate transactions, account books of sales in his general store and from his palm leaf hat business, and notes of accounts with individuals.

Harvard educated and a veteran of the American Revolution, Benjamin Heywood was a jurist and prosperous farmer from Worcester, Mass.

Includes documentation of civic and farming activities, such as which animals were put to pasture on what date, which pastures were leased to others, the names and terms of indentured laborers, and the sale/exchange of agricultural products to customers such as Isaiah Thomas, William Eaton, Nathaniel Stowell, Ithamar Smith, and Jonathan Rice. Also contains references to family members.

Subjects

Farmers--Massachusetts--Worcester

Worcester (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Starting out as a blacksmith in Royalston, Mass., in 1828, Horace Pierce established a successful pail manufacturory. Taking his son Milo as a partner, he employed a work force of eight by 1870, selling over $6,000 of pail annually with capital of nearly $3,500. Horace Pierce died in Royalston in 1883 at the age of 78.

This ledger includes records of work performed as a blacksmith (shoeing horses, fixing irons, mending sleighs, shovels, or chains, sharpening tools), records of manufacturing pails, forms of payment received (cash, labor, agricultural produce, wood, shoes, coal, and old iron), lists of customers, accounts of employees (monthly wages, charges for boarding, and days lost to work), and accounts of supplies purchased.

Subjects

Blacksmiths--Massachusetts--Royalston

Pails--Massachusetts--Royalston

Royalston (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Pierce, Horace, 1805-1883

Pierce, Milo, b. 1829

Types of material

Personal, business, and legal papers of the Howe family of Enfield and Dana, Massachusetts, including correspondence between family members, genealogies, account books and printed materials. Account books record transactions of various family members whose occupations included general storekeeper, minister, printer, postmaster, telephone exchange and gas-station owner, and document the transactions of community businesses and individuals, some of whom were women involved in the beginnings of the local palm leaf hat and mat industry.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, organized in 1903 when two leading team driver associations merged, is one of the largest unions in the U.S. Local 170, representing central Massachusetts, and Local 404, representing western Massachusetts, were both granted their charters with the Teamsters in 1933, and continue to thrive today. The records of these locals consist entirely of agreements between the union and local businesses.

During the summer 1918, Charles Edward Jackson (born April 17, 1889 and youngest of eight) enlisted as a private first class in the 301st Ammunition Train of the 151st Field Artillery Brigade, 76th (Liberty Bell) Division of the American Expeditionary Force. A native of Northampton, Massachusetts, Jackson mustered in at Camp Devens and served on active duty in France at a depot at St. Aignan beginning in July, shuttling ammunition to the front. He remained at St. Aignan throughout his time in the American Expeditionary Force, returning home in June 1919. Jackson died April 12, 1930, and is buried in the family plot in Saint Mary Cemetery, Northampton, Mass.

In this fine set of soldier’s letters from the First World War, Jackson describes over a year of life in an ammunition train from mustering in to the service through overseas deployment in France and demobilization. Descriptive and entertaining, he writes letters to his unnamed sisters (either Katherine, Mary, or Margaret) and brothers (Patrick, Lawrence, or Thomas). Includes details on day to day life in the artillery, the late offensives of 1918 and end of the war, mentions of the flu, his impatience while awaiting demobilization, and an original poem on the role of the ammunition train in the AEF. The collection also includes a fine letter from a friend of the Jacksons describing going over the top during the Aisne-Marne offensive.